ShopRunner opens 100 store pickup points in the Philadelphia area

E-commerce delivery service ShopRunner has opened 100 “PickupPoints” where online shoppers can collect their purchases at retail and convenience stores. ShopRunner, which competes with Amazon Prime, announced after its April acquisition of PickupZone that it would open the collection points before the holiday shopping season.

ShopRunner says consumers who order products from its more than 60 client retailers can pick up items at Philadelphia-area stores operated by Toys’R’Us—a ShopRunner retailer that is No. 29 in the Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide—7-Eleven and Olly Shoes. Consumers select pickup locations by entering ZIP codes on the ShopRunner site or an e-retailer’s site when placing orders. Consumers must show confirmation e-mails or mobile phone bar codes to store employees to pick up orders.

"7-Eleven stores are typically open 24 hours every day, providing around-the-clock convenience for customers to take advantage of ShopRunner's PickupPoints deliveries," says Raja Doddala, 7-Eleven's director of new business ventures. "We can provide a safe and convenient way for shoppers to receive their online orders and pick up food, beverage or necessities while they are in our stores." Shoprunner clients include other retail chains such as Sports Authority, GNC, PetSmart and Lord & Taylor, as well as such web-only retailers as Newegg, Blue Nile and drugstore.com, part of Walgreen Co.

A ShopRunner member pays a $79 annual fee to receive free two-day shipping for select products at participating e-retail stores, signing in at checkout or using a two-click express checkout to initiate the service. That’s the same yearly price charged by Amazon.com Inc., No. 1 in the Top 500, for its Prime service, which also throws in access to streamed content that includes some 25,000 TV show and films.

Amazon also takes part in the package-pickup business through its fledgling Amazon Lockers program, which recently expanded to include stores operated by Staples Inc., No. 2 in the Top 500, and RadioShack Inc., No. 275. Amazon previously had put the lockers into 7-Eleven locations.

ShopRunner did not immediately say how and where its new service would expand.